Atkins Speaks: Tryin' Real Hard to be the Shepherd

A thorough examination of Ross Atkins' recent comments to the media. Because, frankly, we might not have many of these Atkins Speaks posts left.

“Be cool, Honey Bunny.”

That was essentially the message Ross Atkins had for fans when he spoke to the media a week ago. But, just as with Ringo, you could never quite shake the sense that he probably understood he was in over his head. (Sorry, I just rewatched Pulp Fiction, the whole thing won’t be like this!)

The Blue Jays’ GM did his best—or whatever it is he always does—to field questions, many of which felt like thinly veiled variants of “How are you so bad at this?” Or that otherwise, with a few exceptions, were trying to draw out some kind of insight into where things have gone so wrong for this club, which Atkins—if he even knows—was never going to give.

Yeah, I know it’s been a week since all this was the big news of the day, so maybe rehashing it will feel a bit stale. But there was a lot to unpack, if you actually want it done right. And I wasn’t going to spend my whole long weekend on it. Besides, it’s not like there was anything nearly as important happening on the field with the Jays last week—my apologies to Alek Manoah, the reborn Home Run Jacket, some nonsense about iPads, a bullpen disaster, and a trio of nine-spots that brightened the mood for about 30 seconds. You can only say they need to score more runs so many times before it feels completely hollow.

Hey, but at least Sunday’s loss in Detroit was brutally demoralizing in a completely new and different way!

Anyway, here’s Ross saying they need to score runs more so many times that it ends up feeling completely hollow. It’s time for Atkins Speaks!!

Cue Dick Dale…

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Before we get going, a couple of notes:

• You can watch Atkins’ entire media availability here, via Sportsnet.

• All stats quoted are accurate as of Monday, May 27th.

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On the choice to “double down” on last year’s version of the roster and bank on “internal improvements”…

Yeah, I mean obviously we're not where we would like to be. We have seen some encouraging things of late that have not resulted in wins, and have seen some encouraging things in our offence that we feel with time and the talent that's on the team that we can certainly see righting this ship. However, that needs to start pretty soon. So, you know, overall I think the thing that gives us the greatest sense of confidence is the sense of urgency in our clubhouse. That is from one to 26 on our player roster, and throughout the staff.

I’m no PR expert, but I get the sense that someone was imparting to Ross that absolutely nobody was going to listen to him beyond the first couple of sentences, so he’d better hit on all of his key messaging right away. Fair play, I suppose. Not much else he can say, I guess. But we’ve heard it all before. Mark Shapiro was out here trying desperately to assure fans that the team had a sense of urgency way back in August 2022. And less than a year ago Ross was backing his lineup in ways that, if you read through them again now, are going to sound awfully familiar. For example:

“There's a lot of things happening in our batted ball quality that isn't playing out into scoring enough runs. I do believe, as we've said before, that that typically turns. And I still feel really good about this group and the collection of individuals that forms a good team in the clubhouse that have a good chance to go on a good run.”

Oof.

I suppose slipping in a scrum with reporters on the Saturday morning of a long weekend, when you’re also about to hit a soft part of the schedule that might give you a bit of badly needed breathing room, probably makes some sense in a deeply cynical way. Going into hiding would eventually cause different problems than coming out here and saying nothing, and it also increasingly appears as though there may never actually be a good time to do this. But I just don’t really know who any of this was for.

It certainly doesn’t seem to have reassured anyone, or convinced them that all is well, or anything is about to change. Even with the nice little run the team had in the days afterwards—and, hoo boy, I bet Ross wishes he had waited just a little bit longer to do all this, huh?—it clearly shouldn’t have.

You say you're seeing encouraging signs? What are those signs?

First of all, hilarious line reading here from Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she was being completely sincere, but there’s really no way to ask this very reasonable follow-up without sounding like you’re roasting poor old Ross right straight to his face. Lmao.

It's that we're getting into really good counts, we're working starting pitchers better. (Friday) wasn't a great result of that, or example of that, but we have been over the last, really, month, getting into really good hitter's counts, and working starting pitchers hard. But we just haven't been getting our best swings off in those counts.

What's immediately curious to me about this one is that the Jays appear to have been working pitchers well the whole time. Right now they rank 13th in total number of plate appearances with the batter ahead, 28th in PAs with the pitcher ahead, and 27th in PAs with the count even. Also, their 3.97 pitches-per-plate-appearance ranks as the fourth-highest in baseball, and their swinging strike rate of 8.8% is lowest in the majors by half a percentage point.

That’s not what you’d expect from a club that has only been getting into good counts for a month, so I’m not sure what he’s on about.

Weirder still, I used the Wayback Machine to look at the how often the Jays were getting into hitter's counts as of April 22nd, and all of those numbers have since dipped: from 4.2% of plate appearances getting to 3-0, 14% getting to 2-0, and 10.1% getting to 3-1 at that point, down to 4.1%, 13.0%, and 8.4% respectively today.

Now, I'm not sure that's necessarily bad. Clearly the team needs to bring back some of the aggression that worked so well for them in previous years and maybe that’s an indication of that. But drilling down into more of their count-specific numbers, there are definitely some weird things going on with this team, and perhaps their approach.

If you’ll forgive the tangent, here’s one:

The Jays so far this year have taken the third-fewest plate appearances in baseball, which, given how often they’ve come out completely limp, definitely tracks. Interestingly though, when you look at how many PA each team has had in 3-2 counts, the Jays jump all the way up to 15th.

Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, since the league as a whole is producing a 146 wRC+ from 3-2. And technically it's not a problem here either, as the Jays' wRC+ in the split sits at 132. However, that makes them the 25th-ranked club by this metric, and if we look at their OPS+ relative to how the league performs in the split (sOPS+) it sits at just 84.

Being above average at getting into a count that you’re well below average in seems suboptimal. And what’s really strange is what the Jays actually do when they get into those 3-2 counts.

Overall, they are one of the best teams in baseball at avoiding strikeouts, with their 19.3% K-rate ranking 28th in the game. They're also pretty decent at taking walks (9.2%, ranking 6th). However, once they get to 3-2, their strikeout rate ranking moves up slightly to 25th (25.1%) and their walk rate ranking plummets to 21st (30.7%).

They also somehow become the second-most pull-heavy team in baseball (48.8%), despite ranking 24th in pull rate overall (38.4%). And, looking into Statcast's new bat tracking data, they start swinging harder—their dead-last average bat speed (70.1 mph) jumps to 27th (70.3), and their 27th-ranked fast swing rate (15.9%) moves way up to 17th (20.4%).

Like I say, some extra aggression from them makes sense. But there?

The shape of the production that you get at 3-2 is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. League average in the split is .190/.455/.327. The Jays, however, have slashed just .185/.437/.287. Despite swinging harder, pulling the ball more, and actually increasing their fly ball rate, the Jays' home-run-to-fly-ball ratio in 3-2 counts is also the lowest in baseball, dropping from 9.1% overall to just 4.1%—even though the league average HR/FB is generally slightly higher in 3-2 counts than overall. Unsurprisingly, their two home runs from 3-2 counts is tied for the lowest number in the majors.

I’m not sure what they’re trying to do here. If I’ve even identified anything worth considering—keep in mind that we’re only talking about 287 plate appearances at this point, so all of these numbers are still very fuzzy—I would have to believe it’s more a symptom than a cause. I should also note that a lot of these numbers have trended in the right direction since earlier drafts of this piece. But they still look pretty unusual, and not in a good way.

OK, moving on…

Why have the offensive issues continued into this season?

Yeah, I mean, we've made changes to our process, we've made changes to people, some of it personnel. And that's what we're working on. It does take time, and it hasn't happened soon enough, and it needs to start.

It would be a hell of a thing if Ross was right last year that the approach was sound and the runs were going to come, and yet they bowed to external pressure and made changes anyway, wouldn’t it?

Thinking about it now, doing what they did maybe seems more odd than we appreciated at the time. With a month to go last season Atkins was preaching patience and insisting he thought that things would turn. Why then go and shuffle your coaching staff and insist you’ve made big changes to your process?

Obviously the most probable answer is that they were more concerned than they let on publicly. If so, what might they have been concerned about?

Last August, Atkins said that “there are times where our team is perceived as—and not just perceived—is very aggressive. But so much of that is how we're built. We are built to hit good pitching and make contact, and we are doing that. It's just not turning into the runs, and the damage or balls going over the fence as much as it has in the past. I still feel like there's a chance that it can.”

He certainly wasn’t wrong then that whatever they were doing wasn’t turning into runs, primarily because they weren’t putting the ball over the fence or otherwise doing “damage.” But it seemed odd to me that he’d say that the team was “very aggressive” and built to be that way. And yet, looking at a few numbers, you don’t have to squint very hard to see it.

Like this year’s version of the Jays, last year’s were very good at avoiding strikeouts and avoiding swinging strikes. They were one of the least inclined teams when it came to swinging at pitches outside of the zone, and one of the best contact teams in the game. They were also much more inclined to swing at the first pitch last season than they are now, ranking 10th in MLB by rate (33%) then, but having dropped to 27th (28%) this season. They even managed to be league average by OPS+ last year against opponents classified by Baseball Reference as power pitchers, whereas this year they’re dead last in the split, with a 64 sOPS+.

Hard to strike out, good at making contact, decent (if disappointing) at hitting good pitching, still fairly aggressive. It doesn’t exactly match the team he was describing, but it’s not terribly far off.

This year, of course, we’re seeing far fewer swings at the first pitch, far less success against “power pitchers,” they’re pulling the ball less, their exit velocity is down, we’ve seen how low their bat speed is, and they’ve gone from 20th in pitches-per-plate-appearance to fourth.

I think a person could look at all this and wonder if the people in charge saw the supposed aggression as part of the problem, tried to rein it in even more, and actually managed to make things worse.

I’m not sure that’s the answer here. The players are slightly different, and a bigger problem might just be that the front office is bad at identifying guys on the precipice of losing bat speed. But I’m not sure how much benefit of the doubt they’ve earned.

And that things have gotten worse seems undeniable, even if I’m willing to concede that it’s still a little early in the season to make such grand pronouncements, and that obviously the last week or so has helped. Lately my favourite proxy stat for this, since it became a topic of conversation a few weeks back, has been the percentage of games in which the team scored six runs or more. Last year it was 34.5%—a truly amazing number, because it sure as hell didn’t feel as though they were putting up a six-spot more than once every three games on average. This year they’ve done it eleven times in 52 games, or 21% of the time. How on earth does that kind of a drop-off happen?

Someone in the inner-circle is going to write a tell-all about these last couple of seasons one day, and I am very much going to be here for it!

Anyway, it’s not like we haven’t seen other changes here that were maybe similarly misguided, either. As I mentioned above, with about a month to go in 2022, Shapiro was insisting to fans that the players cared and had urgency, and that fans can’t expect perfection, and that everything was fine. Then they went and traded away fun-loving guys and made the team decidedly more red-assed—and, maybe more importantly, also more left-handed. Balancing the lineup had been a something they had long toyed with the thought of, with Atkins saying he wanted more diversity in the batting order, and praising complementary left-handed hitters Cavan Biggio and Corey Dickerson, back after the 2021 season concluded.

“It’s not just that they’re left-handed, but how we are attacked and potentially the pitchers that are used is different,” he explained, per Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi. “Secondarily, we feel it’s important to have balance and not just the same type of hitters up and down your lineup. So some players that are more batting average driven and some players that are more on-base driven with plate discipline. Having both is exceptionally powerful.”

For a thing he was saying would be “exceptionally powerful,” I very much cannot help noticing a particular characteristic missing among the ones he said he wanted to build the lineup around.

I’m not sure I’m being entirely fair here, because hitting isn’t a monolith, and I do still think the majority of what’s gone wrong this season falls on the players’ shoulders, but at this point basic questions such as “Do these guys even have a clue what they’re doing anymore?” kind of have to be asked.

Do you need more power?

I do think that doing damage is definitely going to be a part of the equation. We don't have to hit 15-30 home runs, the first six of our guys at the top of our lineup, but we do have to be driving the ball harder. We do have the exit velocity, like we're seeing guys hitting balls hard, they're not going over the fence, and not enough. And we are working very hard to correct that.

OK, so technically Ross is probably correct on this one. Looking back at recent playoff teams there were nine that featured at least six guys with 15 or more homers last year, however, in 2022 there were only five. I’d argue that you’d much prefer to be among the teams with more¹, but you don’t need to have those kinds of guys necessarily.

More to the point, though, you just… you don’t have to say this! Or, if you really are that worried about possibly putting undue pressure on your guys, you could at least say it and then add something like “BUT IT SURE WOULD BE GODDAMN NICE.”

Don Mattingly said something very similar last August, to great derision from the fan base. And yet here was Atkins wandering straight into the same stupid trap, only with a team that’s on pace to hit 45 fewer homers than it did in 2023.

The 143 home runs the Jays are on pace to hit this season would have put them second last in baseball last season, ahead of only Cleveland.²

HOW IS READING THE ROOM STILL THIS MUCH OF A PROBLEM?

Worse even than his reading of the room, Atkins here is asking people not to trust their own eyes but not giving them any reason to do so beyond “this is what we think.” At least give us a concept. Like, just about everybody has come around on the idea that errors are a bad stat for evaluating defensive value, because we can appreciate that there are other components involved, such as range and arm strength, that it doesn’t capture. But what are we supposed to do with this?

Would love to know why this isn’t telling us what it appears to be! Genuinely!

Hey, and guess what? Remember how Ross said “We do have the exit velocity”? Well, a funny thing happens when you add a line representing the Jays’ average exit velocity ranking to the chart above.

Ughhhhhhh.

What do you see in the early returns from an offence that was 14th in runs last season and now sits 29th?

Yeah, the things I mentioned. The things that—we're getting into better counts, we're getting ourselves into better situations, making good decisions. You don't want to say that every player has not been getting their best swings off, but a big enough number of them that it impacts our ability to score runs. So, we do have really encouraging stories out of some of our lineup. There are guys that are having really solid years. Really encouraged by Varsho getting turned around. Davis Schneider's been incredible this year. Jano’s obviously been very good. There's been other really strong stories, but just not enough to date. And we do need to see change, and we do need to see more run scoring in order for us to win games.

I didn’t think I needed to, but I went and double-checked, and—of course—the three guys name-checked here are the Blue Jays’ hitters that are pulling the ball the most, and pulling flyballs and line drives the most.

As I said above, hitting isn’t a monolith. The existence of these pull-first guys on the Blue Jays is proof that they’re not a one-size-fits all team, just like the fact that Vlad has never been discouraged from hitting the ever-loving piss out of the ball—or that they called up Addison Barger, even when they didn’t have a position for him to play, just to see if they might catch lightning in a bottle with a guy who has elite bat speed—shows that they haven’t completely turned their backs on exit velocity. But this is pretty funny.

What factors are keeping your players from getting their best swings off, given how much that would have been a focal point?

Yeah, it's hard. It's not something that I've been able to pinpoint—or Donnie, or Schneids—has anyone been able to pinpoint. We just see it as something that we can correct. And that comes back—you don't just tell someone to swing harder, or swing in certain counts more aggressively. It's not as simple as that, as you know. So, hitting is the most dynamic and challenging challenge, really, in professional sport. And really, the things that we've worked to change, we do believe in. We do believe in the changes and adjustments, and feel like we have the time and the talent for that to correct.

We don’t know what’s wrong, but we think we can fix it.

That pretty much sums up the whole entire problem right there, doesn’t it?

In 2021 and 2022 this was not an issue for this team, what are some of the underlying elements that have changed?

Yeah, I mean, it's certainly fair (to ask the question). For us, obviously, as we look(ed) to correct the pitching and defence, and there were personnel changes. But if you look at the contributions, and if you just were to go player-by-player from '21 and '22 and look at the players who aren't here, and look at the players who are, and just insert their offence, even, into the players that they replaced. Whether that—if you're pointing to Lourdes and Marcus Semien and Teo—and look at some of the players that have come into those (places), you can see that there are really encouraging contributions across. But I do think your point is a very fair one, and one that we need to continue to challenge ourselves on. But, as I said from the start, we feel that there's enough talent for us to be scoring more runs. We're certainly capable of scoring more runs, and we need to start doing so.

Mealy-mouthed stuff from Ross here, but I get what he’s saying. The guys they’ve brought in to fill out the lineup after losing the three players he mentioned made some real contributions, even if you just isolate their offence. I don’t think that’s untrue, but I don’t think it measured up to the production that was lost. And I definitely don’t think it was a good idea, in retrospect, to move so far away from the idea that handedness doesn’t matter if you have guys who can hit. WHERE ARE THE GUYS WHO CAN HIT?

Half-jokes aside, I get that too, of course. Heading into last season, Travis Sawchik of theScore (never heard of them) wrote about the Jays’ “sneaky good” offseason, citing their addition of solid left-handed bats as key. The club had just come off a season where they were the only team in baseball with “fewer than 1,000 plate appearances from left-handed hitters facing right-handed pitching,” and their number of RHB vs. RHP plate-appearances in 2022 had been higher than the second-highest team by over 600. The shift ban was also a factor in trying to get more left-handed. I get it.

But, like, I don’t know, man. Maybe you should have seen the dip in home runs, exit velocity, and runs and then not doubled down on non-home-run-hitters quite so much?

How much does this fall on Springer, Bichette, and Guerrero?

Yeah, I mean, it's always a team component. I think you look across winning teams, year in and year out, or teams that score runs like our '21 and '22, and your better players are having solid years in those cases.

That’s about as close to criticism as you’re going to get. Drink it in!

A question about Springer that was unintelligible on Sportsnet’s feed…

Good to see (Friday), hit two balls really hard. I think, you know, Schneids has talked about it a lot—just getting the ball in the air, to left field more often. When he's been really good he's always done that. He's put balls over the fence in that direction. And seeing him pull that ball at 107 yesterday was really encouraging. The exit velo is there. The intent is there. The drill work is there. The buy-in. So I feel like it will come. And now it's—you know, we have time, but it needs to start to change.

Getting the ball in the air to left field more often??!?!

That’s good! I suppose that can’t be anything but good. That is indeed what’s going to make Springer a useful contributor from here on out, I would think. But Springer's pull rate has gone from 49.3% in his first year here, to 48.3% then to 39.5%, to 34.5% this year. His percentage of total pitches seen that were hit in the air or on a line drive to left field has gone from a career high of 3.4% in 2020—for context, that’s the same percentage as Danny Jansen is at this season—to 2.6% in 2021, to 2.3%, to 2.2%, to 1.4% this season.

Like, when was the decision made that this would be a good idea? Because it kinda feels like it was the day before this scrum, and I think a lot of people could have suggested it sooner.

When you say sense of urgency, do you have a specific timeline?

Yeah, I mean. I think (the question is) fair. It's not like a hard date. We're at the quarter pole, and once you get to the halfway mark there's not much you can do if the hole remains the same.

July 3rd at 3:57 PM.

What is the front office doing to help?

Yeah. Yeah, we've had a lot of dialogue to talk about. We have a lot of good players in Triple-A that could contribute, it's just where and what position and which players would you subtract—not necessarily subtract from the team, but decrease playing time with. And the challenge remains the same with trade. So if we were to acquire a player at this point you obviously are playing a premium—we can do that. We have the players to trade for that level of talent, we feel that the best contributions that could create that change in run scoring is going come from within our clubhouse or with Triple-A, with the players that are here, but the dialogue is steady on the alternatives that could happen.

Truly a fascinating brain. I like Ross, but the ol' RossBOT 2000™ glitched out hard here. Just pure whiplash—prospects! playing time! trade premiums! we can buy! prospects! internal improvements! prospects! but we have options!

My only other takeaway from this one is that to lean on the 24th-ranked farm system in baseball, according to Baseball America, as heavily as he’s suggesting here feels pretty grim.

I mean, yeah, the Bisons are having a nice year offensively, ranking fourth in the International League by OPS. But, unsurprisingly, a lot of that production comes via OBP, where their .371 mark as a team ranks second. They're 7th in SLG and 9th in home runs, which is certainly not bad, but probably doesn't quite match the impression some Jays fans have of those guys—or that Atkins is trying to give.

And that's before even talking about how difficult it is to make the jump from Triple-A to MLB. For example, Ernie Clement, who slashed .348/.401/.544 in Buffalo last year, and put up a similar line over 52 MLB PAs, is down to .242/.263/.368 so far this season. Some of that is related to his .241 BABIP, but I'm not sure how much that's relevant, because even with his speed he may always be susceptible to low BABIPs because he swings a ton and makes contact on absolutely everything—including a ton of pitcher's pitches that will always be tough to make quality contact on.

Anyway! Point is, it's tough to hit in the big leagues, it turns out.

Can you evaluate the job the coaching staff has done?

Yeah, man, it's—I know it's not the satisfying answer for a fan, because we don't have the results, but Matt Hague's—the addition of Matt Hague, the leadership of Donnie on the offensive side, the patience and steadiness to their approach, the unbelievable work ethic that they've put in. And, as I said, just that sense of urgency that has been so consistent is really impressive to see. And the fans don't get to see that. So, when I see it, that's where it allows us to be patient and not just look to change. But I've been really impressed with that, really impressed with—obviously the baseball acumen and content based on their experiences is really good, and I've been really impressed with their lack of defensiveness in times that have been very challenging for our organization and team.

Sure. OK.

Why do you still believe in the changes made this spring, i.e. moving Mattingly to offensive coordinator?

Yeah. Because of the smaller signs. The compete, the fight, the no rollover. That's been consistent with our team this year. It's been consistent with our staff. And the things that I mentioned about our process that we've changed, the messaging and the content, we've changed the delivery, and there is complete buy-in. We don't have someone pulling in a different direction. And when times are tough, that's not that common.

Teams treat their proprietary data like the nuclear codes, so I’m not surprised that Ross doesn’t tell us anything here about their process/messaging/content/delivery. But what that means is that, when the results don’t come, we’re inevitably left wondering if all that wonderful buy-in is on the results of bad process. Kind of a theme!

What would your message be to the fans?

That would be it. That we believe in this talent. We believe in—there is time left. But there is a massive sense of urgency and we need to get it turned around soon.

Once again there’s not much else that he can say here. But it’s funny how urgency is a bad thing—teams say they value guys with a “slow heartbeat”—until it isn’t, eh? And then, if it feels like they’re “pressing,” it comes back around to being bad. Almost like it’s all just pablum.

But are they maybe actually turning it around? I mean, they’ve averaged 5.6 runs per game since Atkins said this. And he is at least out here talking about pulling the ball in the air more. Could there be something there?

Admittedly, I’m about to parse things in a particularly dumb way here, but let's look at a few numbers since Ross spoke last Saturday morning. On one hand, the Jays produced a pulled line drive or fly ball in 15.1% of their plate appearances over this span, which is a significant improvement on their 11.1% rate for the season. And perhaps they were a little less afraid to swing-and-miss, with their swinging strike rate of 9.5% being up from their season mark of 8.8%. On the other hand, looking at just this stretch, their average exit velocity only ranked 27th, and their hard hit rate ranked 29th. And, on a third hand, we’re talking about a truly meaningless sample here, which can be skewed easily by personnel, opposition, and just pure randomness.

Hard to believe we’re really seeing a different team here, at least until they put up a few more crooked numbers—particularly against better teams than they’ve been seeing—and cut down on the one- and two-run affairs.

What's the rest of that—what if it doesn't?

We'll see. You always are prepared for any angle or any pivot that you have to make. We spend every day thinking about every way to make this organization better, and the situation that could present itself.

I once heard about a guy who spent every day thinking about how to get with Christie Brinkley and guess what? HIS NAME WAS BILLY JOEL AND IT WORKED.

(Look it up, kids.)

Has anything you've seen this year shifted whether you see this team as a contender?

Um... I mean, it really comes down to us just being able to score more runs. I think that our defence has been really encouraging and our pitching has been steady. I know we've had some blips in our bullpen, and we've had a couple of guys get off to slower starts, but I feel like we'll be able to prevent runs, and we have talent and time to score more runs. We need to start winning more games. It needs to start happening.

Staying on message like a politician. And who doesn’t love a politician?

What does your record, which has been compiled against a lot of teams you're directly competing with, tell you about where you are relative to the rest of the league?

I would agree with that if we had our guys playing to projections, and playing at levels that are more within their normal ranges. I would agree with the line of your questioning. But then I would just revert back to all the things that I've been saying.

Wild idea here, Ross, but how about you put together a roster that projects to be better than just lingering around the fringes of the playoff race? Maybe build in some wiggle room for yourselves in case guys you expect to do a lot of heavy lifting have down years?

Maybe understand that, according to ZiPS mastermind Dan Szymborski, a player’s “bottom-line projection is, in layman’s terms, only a midpoint. You don’t expect every player to hit that midpoint; 10% of players are ‘supposed’ to fail to meet their 10th-percentile projection and 10% of players are supposed to pass their 90th-percentile forecast.”

No? OK, good talk.

What are your thoughts about the utility of tinkering with the bottom of the order?

I mean, we've had guys performing from four to eight, and depending on the day, and who's in the lineup, and who's in the nine-hole, whatever. We've have guys performing in the middle to later part of our lineup. We've had guys performing in the top of it. It's really just about the collective nine being within their normal ranges that will help the lineup be more productive.

Sure?

How do you feel the ballpark is playing/how much of a factor is it?

Yeah, you know, it's still early. But it seems to be about as we expected: that (it) would be relatively consistent, with the exit velos and ball trajectory, where they would be going. It seems to be playing out relatively consistent, as we though it would.

Last season the Jays were 5th by wRC+ while on the road, and 7th by runs scored, compared to 17th and 23rd at home, so if Ross was ever going to play the “the stadium isn't playing the way we expected” card it would have been then. This year they've been nine points of wRC+ better at Rogers Centre than on the road, so it wouldn't have made sense to do it here.

Either way, he's right that there just isn't enough data to really answer this, and realistically there won't be for a while. A rolling three-year window is generally what's used when looking at park factors, and even though the biggest changes came ahead of 2023, there's a pretty big difference in terms of foul territory between this year and last, which you'd expect would affect park factor. Kind of hard to make sense of it at this point. But nothing that Statcast measures seems extreme or very far off neutral, except that it doesn't play well for triples, which has been the case for a very long time.³

On moving Springer down

It really comes down to we need George Springer, we need to get him going. Really excited about some of the things that Donnie and George have been working on—with others; with G and Matt and Hunter. His fight, and his commitment, and the strength is there. And if that intent shifts to the ball getting in the air a little bit more, I think we could get him back into someone that is a meaningful part of the top of our order.

I'll say it again but... where was this pull the ball in the air stuff before now? The man had a 104 wRC+ last year! His pull rate has gone down, and his oppo rate up, every single year since he's been here!

Did discussions need to be had before this change?

Oh yeah, I'm sure that Schneids had multiple discussions with staff, and certainly with George. I know that he did.

I love how the instinct from Ross here was to equivocate, but as he got to speaking he realized halfway through that actually this one was safe to confirm.

I also love that Springer stayed at the top of the lineup for so long that people started wondering if the team was somehow contractually bound to hitting him in the leadoff spot. I don’t imagine that’s why this question was asked, but I certainly thought about it when I first heard it. (I also can’t blame people for wondering that, even if it’s not something that would ever actually happen. Plus, even I didn’t remember that Springer was moved down in the lineup for most of last August until somebody reminded me.)

When do you say these players aren't the right players?

Yeah. We're not there. We're not that. I think that—I've seen really encouraging signs from Vladdy over the last several weeks. Seen really good signs from Bo over the last week. And I have seen Bo go through these stretches before. Maybe this one's a little bit longer than one he's been through before, but he comes out on fire, and I know that he will. I am not concerned about those guys being good players, and do not think about those changes. We need to think about complementing and supplementing, and we have really good players in Triple-A performing at a really high level that hopefully can come in to contribute. So, I have so much confidence in Bo and Vladdy and George that they're going to be contributors, and solid ones, that—I am confident that we are going to score more runs.

Obviously a GM is never going to say anything other than this, but… well… he’s certainly kept his options open by not signing either of Vlad or Bo to a contract extension, hasn’t he?

I’m not saying that he necessarily should have extended them by now, but I’m not sure you can insist that you believe these are the right players when we’re now into, like, year six of “Are they ever going to get these guys extended?” discourse.

What's keeping Orelvis Martinez down?

It's a combination of where he would play here, him learning to play second at a level that would be average-to-above, and the benefit of player development in that time, for a 22-year-old. Those three things are what are keeping him in Triple-A at this point.

OK, look. Orelvis is an exciting prospect and his 12 homers so far is an impressive total and makes him among the leaders in the International League. The Jays could certainly use more of those. But regarding just about anything else to do with him, I think some folks need a reality check here.

Orelvis has a .515 slugging percentage, which ranks 26th among qualified hitters in the IL. He has a 109 wRC+, which ranks eighth... among players on his own team with at least 50 PA. Among qualified hitters in the International League it ranks 55th. Among all Triple-A-level players it ranks 83rd.

Now, I don't say this to run him down. Among qualified Triple-A hitters at age-22 or younger his wRC+ ranks 9th. He's a good prospect to even be in that group at all, which in total numbers just 16. But he's slashing .240/.325/.515. ZiPS projects that, if he were moved up to the big leagues, he'd slash .221/.289/.413 (100 wRC+) the rest of the season, which is by far the best projection among those listed on his FanGraphs page.

People love to say “play the kids” when they're fed up with watching struggling big leaguers, but rarely think about what 110 or so games of that would actually look like.

Or maybe they understand that they won't be watching at that point anyway.

How about bringing up Horwitz for Vogelbach?

Yeah, I mean, like, you see how much Vogelbach is playing. So, there is a benefit to how much this time means for someone at this point in their career to actually getting those at-bats and those reps—where here he would be playing once a week. Maybe he would play a little bit more, because he would play first base maybe a little bit more often. He's played some second, some left, but he's a real alternative for us, and he's benefitting from that time there. As is Addison Barger, and Leo Jimenez. Leo Jimenez is having a really good year. Will Robertson. We have a lot of guys—Stewart Berroa—that are really performing well.

Justin Turner's slash line against right-handed pitching right now is .185/.279/.286 (68 wRC+). How about actually using Vogelbach more before kicking him to the curb?

I understand that Vogey’s numbers are hardly better—he has just an 82 wRC+ in the split this season—but his track record against RHP is good enough that I’d be willing to give him more of a chance before cutting bait, as long as Turner keeps struggling. (And that appears to be exactly what the Jays are doing.)

But, sure, Horwitz could make sense, I suppose. Maybe this is the ideal time to give him a try, with Joey Votto getting closer to being a factor (see below). If Horwitz doesn’t grab a role and run with it over the course of a couple weeks, Votto could simply come and take his place. I guess?

I don’t know, real rearranging-deck-chairs vibes with all this stuff.

But Horwitz, who is 26, isn't in the same boat as Orelvis, right?

Yeah, that's fair. I just think it comes down to: is it—his impact, playing once a week on our team, versus his growth and development (and) continued improvement playing every day. And the opportunities to learn to play second, and get into left field, I think it will be more shifted to second for him. But that's a good opportunity for him and for us.

Another guy who doesn’t hit home runs? Just what this team needs! The bat would play better at second though, I guess.

How realistic is it that Horwitz could play second?

Yeah, the reports are good, but I think it's four games. The hand-eye's great, the hands are really good, I think it will be coming down to just footwork and the plays around the bag—diving plays, and just learning what to do with those throws.

Ah, so just learning the position entirely. No big deal!

Which isn’t to say I completely hate this stuff. Being willing to sacrifice some defence for offence seems necessary for this team at this point—which, you may recall, everybody was screaming about all winter—and I’m not even terribly bothered by the whole “not putting guys in a position to succeed” thing. As I said about Barger above, they’re trying to catch lightning in a bottle. What else can you do when you aren’t scoring?

And yet I can’t help but feel like… what are we even doing here?

I don’t want to be too down on Horwitz either, because he has some genuine skills and looks like he’s successfully mastered Triple-A pitching. But two of the biggest things for him—his ability to take walks and avoid strikeouts—went in the wrong direction in big ways when he was up in the big leagues last year. And when you take those away, and then look at his .139 ISO and his .390 BABIP in Buffalo this season, I just have a hard time seeing a guy who is ready to be a difference-maker at the highest level. At least not in the sense that YOU HAVE TO GET HIM UP HERE.

What's the impact on Orelvis defensively having Horwitz at second?

Well, he's not playing every day there. They'll alternate that some. Not too significant. He can DH or play third.

Defence is definitely another reason to pump the brakes on Orelvis a bit!

Have you adjusted the process?

Well, we changed it significantly last year, and into spring training. We're encouraged by spring training, some of the early results, and we've obviously—it's always—we're always evolving. We have tweaked it. We have tweaked some of the information flows. And, obviously, Donnie and Schneids can talk to you about some of the delivery of information that they give the players, when. But yes, always evolving. It's not something that's set in stone. But the changes that we made we do believe in, that can be effective.

When Mark Shapiro needs to clean up the mess that was your end-of-season press conference by assuring fans that a “deep dive” into game-planning, communication, and general “process” is necessary, and then you shuffle a couple roles around, announce that you've made sweeping changes, decide to tread water—at best—in terms of on-field personnel, and then say you're banking on “internal improvements” that, after two months, have failed to materialize, you're going to get questions like this.

It's all just word salad, though, isn't it?

“Process” is just so vague—by design. Changing it could mean adding a new colour to the red/yellow/green bullpen availability card. It could mean meeting with hitters at a different time of day. It could mean firing the advance scouts. It could mean demanding Dave Hudgens explain where he was on January 6th. They're never going to tell, so we get this nonsense.

A lot of this talk, of course, came about because of the freakout in Minnesota last October, after José Berríos—who, having allowed three hits and a walk over three innings, was maybe not quite “rolling” in the way angry fans like to claim—was treated like any Rays starting pitcher in a playoff game over the last decade.

Pull at this thread and you start to see what might be the central problem of the Atkins era:

• Ross here is dealing with the fallout of having to talk about overhauling the club's “process,” and talking about that behind-the-scenes overhaul became necessary because of how badly he communicated the decision to pull Berríos and how it came about.

• This was also in the wake of players, still steamed about it, grumbling publicly about communication. And that happened not long after Buck Martinez's on-air “analytics rant,” which included him saying that pitchers had groused to him about their usage, and the way front offices don't push them hard enough anymore, after Seattle's George Kirby had told reporters following a September loss that he wished he hadn't been sent back out to the mount for another inning after reaching the 90-pitch mark.

• This was all happening just months after the Anthony Bass fiasco, which was another instance of Atkins trying to say what he thought people would want to hear in order to minimize the heat he and the team were under. That was, of course, fumbled as badly as it possibly could have been, and contributed to the further erosion of trust between fans—and maybe players—and front office.

• The Blue Jays were, of course, absolutely correct in their pitching usage last season—four of their starters made 30+ starts!—but this stuff appeared to clash with the “old school” mindset of some of the guys they had deliberately brought in to “change the culture” because previous iterations of the club seemed too unserious. Guys who think like Buck—whose comments about this stuff hold a lot of sway among fans.

• The fear of the team looking unserious was big enough for Mark Shapiro’s impromptu late-2022 media tour, which I’ve mentioned a couple times already. And that happened not long after Charlie Montoyo was fired—despite having been signed to a contract extension through 2023, with two further club options, only just that spring—reportedly because he had lost the room due to poor communication. It perhaps didn't also help him that fans had grown deeply sour with his calm presence in the dugout when they were all tearing their hair out. (John Schneider, despite being very different in that sense, has not been any less of a lightning rod.)

I don’t know. I'm just spitballing things here, but it feels a little bit like it's been an endless cycle of failing to read the room and responding with misguided overcorrection. Of trying to tell people what they want to hear so as to kick your own problems farther down the road, only to have them compound and compound.

That’s probably a bit too negative. As I've written before, if Springer, Vlad, and Kirk hit just a little bit more last season we are in a very different place. Winning fixes everything, as Shapiro and Atkins have understood since day one. So maybe I'm just trying to work through what the story of the Atkins era will be once the inevitable happens. But, as much as I've always bristled at the “he sounds too corporate” stuff as being fans searching for something to be mad at, it's impossible to deny that the stink of communication failure is all over everything that's brought the franchise to this bleak point.

When is the time to shift the process?

Yeah, it's not like we're going to just watch this team into August or September... If things don't start to turn then we have to consider that process in a strong way.

DEAD MAN WALKING!

Could Nathan Lukes help?

He's a really good fit for us, and someone that we talk about on a regular basis, and what would that playing time look like for him, if he were to come here? And what would it mean for the players that are here? And how much runway do we want to give certain guys?

I like Nathan Lukes. Solid player who could help a team maybe. WHO CARES?

Would you say you need to see more success stories from the farm system?

Yeah, we always need to see success stories from that group, for sure. And we've had really encouraging things in Double-A and Triple-A, and we've had some young pitchers get here. On the offensive side it's really encouraging, and we've had—some of our pitching is doing well, but obviously our higher-named guys have taken some injury hits. Excited to get Ricky Tiedemann back on the mound.

Yes, I would, Kent.

Update on Tiedemann?

He's throwing bullpens. I can't remember what exactly his timeline is, but he'll be in games relatively soon.

Does the injury mean prior workload restrictions are off?

Yeah. Yeah, for the most part.

Works for me!

Update on Landon Maroudis?

He was seeing—he was getting another opinion. And I think we'll have clarity on that within days, whether it's surgical or not.

You don’t get a second opinion if you liked the first.

Votto update?

Yeah, he had a couple of different flu bugs. Obviously not the ones that few through this clubhouse, but dealt with some illnesses, and dealt with that ankle that lingered. He wants to feel like he's in the strongest possible position before he goes to Triple-A, and I think he's getting closer to that.

Not quite how Votto put it, but I’ll allow it.

Is your feeling about John Schneider the same as when you brought him in?

Yes. He's has been the things that I mentioned—he has been strong and steady and patient in a really trying time. His in-game decision-making has been really consistent, his communication with our players has been tireless, and he's been very strong through a very difficult time.

Smash that batting practice fastball, Ross!

Is it John Schneider's lineup?

Everything is in collaboration, if that's your question. And we all, whether it's myself or Pete Walker, talking about—”hey, how can we”—”let's talk about this”—we all have baseball experience, let's talk about different ways that we can think about improving, whether it be environment, the lineup, positional usage or deployment. There's constant dialogue around that, but ultimately everyone here wants John Schneider to feel very comfortable with having the final say.

What year is this? Where am I?

On the ticking clock and the balance between win-now and long-term?

Well, we have good Triple-A players that could contribute here, we have a talented team, and we have some time for things to correct, as I've mentioned. The sense of urgency has always been there, and it remains. If there are ways that we could add a player externally, that makes sense for the team, we are open to doing that. And it's not just a matter of trading away players or trading away prospects. It just has to make the most sense in terms of impact and adding wins, and impact to this team. So, um, you know—the sense of urgency is always very high for us to push things over the top. There is nothing more that myself, Mark Shapiro, John Schneider, anyone in this organization wants than for us to be winning more than we are.

I don’t see how they could possibly justify adding anyone to a team that’s last in the AL East and in the bottom third of the league by run differential. Granted, that last stat has changed quite a bit in the last week. They’re ahead of Tampa now, even. But still, I think they’ve got to see how the next six weeks go, decide if they’re going to trade away their pending free agents or not, and then… that’s probably about it.

I don’t think they’re going to punt on 2025, and I wouldn’t guess that they’re going to do anything massive with Vlad or Bo before the winter either—though Josh Goldberg’s recent piece on potential trade ideas for theScore (never heard of them) provided some interesting food for thought on that front.

How important is the softer schedule?

It's not just every game matters and every game is important. Yes, when you dig yourself a little bit of a hole you're increasing the importance of the games ahead. We have had a very tough schedule, the hardest in baseball, we've played on the road a ton. Now it's starting to turn a bit. So that would heighten our opportunity to turn the tides.

Well, it certainly seems to have helped wake the bats up a little bit—though you could maybe give the Home Run Jacket’s return credit for that as well, if you really wanted to. In a week of exclusively playing the White Sox and Tigers—which will continue as the Jays are in Chicago for a three-game set that began here on Monday—the Jays' rank second to only the Royals in wRC+ (135), position player WAR (2.2), and runs scored (41). Their nine homers put them in a five-way tie for the eighth-most over that span.

The Pirates arrive next, and then after four with the Orioles, the Jays will visit Oakland before things get tough again with Milwaukee (away), Cleveland (home), Boston (home), Cleveland (away), Boston (away), then a home series with the Yankees to finish out June.

It could be worse for the next little bit, I suppose. But they certainly haven’t taken advantage in the standings over the last week, and that’s really all that matters.

Also, I'm not so sure about Atkins' claim about having had the toughest schedule in baseball so far. That's not always the easiest thing to measure, but the Jays are tied for 7th with 28 road games played, alone in 7th for the most games against teams at or above .500, and Baseball Reference's strength of schedule stat has them in a three-way tie for the fourth-hardest.

Hey, and Tankathon ranks their remaining schedule as the third-hardest—though it’s maybe too early to be thinking of draft position just yet. Well, at least until they’re through with the White Sox.

OK, that’s it! If you made it all this way, thanks so much for reading!

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1. The Astros (6), Blue Jays (6), Dodgers (6), Yankees (6), and Atlanta (8) in '22, and the Orioles (6), Blue Jays (7), Phillies (7), Rangers (7), Twins (7), Astros (8), Dodgers (8), Rays (8), and Atlanta (9) in '23. As opposed to the Rays (2), Cardinals (3), Guardians (3), Padres (4), Phillies (4), Mariners (5), and Mets (5) in '22, and the Brewers (3), Marlins (3), and Diamondbacks (4) in '23.

2. I’d make a joke here about the front office trying to remake the team in the image of their light-hitting former home, but Cleveland has actually been above average in terms of home run output more often than not over the last several years. And I’m old enough to remember the offensive exploits of the great Cleveland teams of the late 1990s—including the 1999 team, which was the most recent team to score 1,000 runs in a season, and the only one to have done so since 1950.

3. I can’t say that the ballpark has never played well for them, because those early 90s teams could hit a triple, man.